Procrastination. “I’ll do it tomorrow…or another day.” This is the most common phrase used by almost every single person when it comes down to leaving things for “tomorrow.” In fact, I’m guilty of saying this at least a few times a week, and each time I say it to my dad, his clever response is “tomorrow never comes!” and the truth is, a large percentage of the time, tomorrow really doesn’t come.
We (and by we, I mean you and I) put off the important things that we need to do primarily because of two factors:We’re afraid of the overwhelming responsibility to complete the task (or tasks) and/or we just don’t believe in ourselves that we can do that particular task. It feels overbearing to even THINK about getting things done which leads to procrastination.
But the reality is, whatever we’re procrastinating about, we need to just get it done. But that’s easier said than done. So here’s my top three steps to eliminate your procrastination woes:
- Write it down: One of the benefits of actually writing things out (not on your Android or iPhone, but using a paper and pen – vintage, right?!), is it’s therapeutic and helps to relieve the stress that often set us back from doing what needs to get done. Write down the tasks that you need to complete and see what happens. Next label those items from one to whatever number you’ve made it to, and put it in sequence where one is the most important task, and the last number is the task that deserves the least amount of time. Quite often in our minds, our tasks seem more overwhelming because we’re over thinking what needs to get done. Once we start to write these things down, we start to understand that perhaps the laundry list of what we need to do is almost the same length of a recipe of how to make bomb tacos (which is a much shorter list!).
- Breath & Ask God For Revelation: Quite often we drown ourselves in thinking that what we need to do is overwhelming, and trust me – I get it. However, it’s important that when we write down what we need to accomplish, we need to breath and ask God to reveal to you what you need to do. I’m not talking about the regular breaths we take day in and day out, but I’m talking about the deep breathes, that we so often reject to take because we feel so busy in our hectic lives that we cannot spare another moment for ourselves and God. Deep breathing not only helps to bring clarity and push you from procrastination, but connecting with God will help to release the tension that often comes when we think about how daunting it is to complete the tasks we need to. So inhale through your nose and count to five, then release! After that, spend some quiet time with God to lead you by the Spirit to see what could be happening. Sometimes these feelings are deep rooted issues that we must spend time uprooting and rebuilding by using the Word to affirm what Do this for at least 5 minutes a day, or anytime you feel overwhelmed with what you need to do.
- Perfection < Get It Done!: I would be lying if I said I’m not a perfectionist at heart. I want everything to look, taste and feel good. But often in my midst of perfection, I realize that the minutes, hours, and days slip past me because I’m fixated on getting things perfect, rather than getting things done. And the root of that really came down to how much I believed in myself and what God can do with and for me! So my advice to you is understand that you need to get things done because there’s not enough hours in the day to be fixated on getting the perfect graphics, making sure each strand of your hair doesn’t look out of place because time will slip away faster than you could ever imagine!
Try these tips and see how far it helps you! Comment below to let you know what you do to get things done!
xo,
Laura Opoku